Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red, a new, original exhibition coming to our Castle Memorial Building.

Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red explores manifestations of red in the landscapes, memory, and created expressions of Oceania. Ka ʻUla Wena originates in Hawaiʻi, but we reach out to embrace our cousins across the vast Moananuiākea.

The phrase “ka ‘ula wena” refers to a glowing red, one whose warmth envelops Hawaiʻi each day, first at Kumukahi, the storied easternmost point of the Islands. It is the strength of the sun but also the bounty of reds found in the plants and animals it nourishes. Ka ‘ula wena is a red experienced beyond seeing. This redness is felt in mele (song), moʻolelo (stories), and the wena (warmth) of kinship. Red conveys a constellation of ideas densely populated by meaning. Red, beyond color, shade, or hue, elevates the senses, shifts emotions, affirms kinships, enlivens passions, consecrates the sacred, and sets apart the profane.

Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red celebrates the distinctly unique reds of Oceania and the redness of our connection.